Media Corrections We’d Like to See

By Norman Solomon, AlterNet. Posted July 24, 2007.

One aspect of news media that needs a different paradigm is the correction ritual. Newspapers are sometimes willing to acknowledge faulty reporting, but the "correction box" is routinely inadequate.

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Former readers of Mad Magazine can remember a regular feature called "Scenes We'd Like to See." It showed what might happen if candor replaced customary euphemisms and evasions. These days, what media scenes would we like to see?

One aspect of news media that needs a different paradigm is the correction ritual. Newspapers are sometimes willing to acknowledge faulty reporting, but the "correction box" is routinely inadequate -- the journalistic equivalent of self-flagellation for jaywalking in the course of serving as an accessory to deadly crimes.

Some daily papers are scrupulous about correcting the smallest factual errors that have made it into print. So, we learn that a first name was misspelled or a date was wrong or a person was misidentified in a photo caption. However, we rarely encounter a correction that addresses a fundamental flaw in what passes for ongoing journalism.

Here are some of the basic corrections that we'd really like to see:

• "Yesterday's paper included a business section but failed to also include a labor section. Yet the vast majority of Americans work without investing for a living. They are employees rather than entrepreneurs. The failure to recognize such realities when using newsroom resources is not journalistically defensible. The Daily Bugle regrets the error."
• "On Thursday, in a lengthy story about the economy, this newspaper quoted three corporate executives, two Wall Street business analysts and someone from a corporate-funded think task. But the article did not quote a single low-income person or a single advocate for those mired in poverty. The Daily Bugle regrets the error."
• "On Sunday, in a front-page article about the mayor's proposals for a sweeping new urban-renewal program, The Daily Bugle devoted 27 paragraphs to the potential impacts on real estate interests, store owners and investors. Yet the story devoted scant attention to the foreseeable effects of the project on poor people, many of whom have been living in the affected neighborhoods for generations."
• "Last week, The Daily Bugle reported on the history of human rights violations in Latin America without noting the pivotal roles played by the U.S. government in supporting despotic regimes during the 20th century. Such selective reporting had the effect of airbrushing significant aspects of the historical record."
• "Yesterday, when The Daily Bugle printed a correction about an obituary, it supplied the proper spelling of the first name of the deceased's daughter. However, the correction failed to correct the obituary's evasive summary of his lethal Machiavellian activities as a top official of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Daily Bugle regrets the error."
• "For nearly five years, The Daily Bugle has frequently printed the headline 'Deaths in Iraq' over the latest listing of confirmed American deaths in Iraq. This headline has been insidiously misleading because it propagates the attitude that the only 'deaths in Iraq' worth reporting by name are the deaths of Americans. Such tacit jingoism and nationalistic narcissism have no place in quality news reporting. The Daily Bugle regrets its participation in this repetition compulsion disorder of American journalism."
• "The Daily Bugle's reporting has often referred to Senator Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) as 'a respected senator on foreign affairs.' In fact, while some observers greatly respect Senator Lugar, others view him as a chronic hand-wringer whose pathetic deference to presidential militarism has aided and abetted the latest war crimes ordered from the Oval Office."
• "For more than five years, readers of this newspaper have encountered -- without attribution -- frequent references to 'the war on terrorism' and 'the war on terror.' While avidly used by architects and supporters of the U.S. government's military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, such phrases are based on assumptions that could be substantively and effectively refuted. The Daily Bugle regrets that its news pages have relentlessly promoted such official buzzwords as though they were objective realities instead of terms devised to manipulate the public for endless war."

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The new documentary film "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death," based on Norman Solomon's book of the same title, is now available on DVD. For information about the full-length movie, produced by the Media Education Foundation and and narrated by Sean Penn, go to: www.WarMadeEasyTheMovie.org.

CNN's YouTube Debate Failed the American People

By Rory O'Connor, AlterNet. Posted July 24, 2007.

All the fear of unfiltered, unmediated questions delivered directly from the electorate was misplaced. It was CNN and the candidates who let us down.

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I spent many years toiling in the television news business, countless hours of which were spent sitting in sleek, cool, dark spaces known variously as the "Control Room" and even "Master Control."

Think about it for a moment -- control as the dominant metaphor for an entire industry. And knowing when to exercise firm control, and when it's best just to let go, can be one of life's most difficult and delicate dances -- as any parent can attest.

Maybe that explains why CNN seemed so unsure about when to let go and when to hold on during its much-ballyhooed "YouTube Debate." Its MSM mania for "filtering" the questions, coupled with moderator Anderson Cooper's failure to control the candidates and push them actually to answer the questions asked, marred what was otherwise an interesting and even laudable experiment in participatory democracy.

In only dipping its toe in the swirling, muddy waters of citizen media, greater access, and individual empowerment, however, America's 'most trusted news network' failed to deliver on the promise of a Great Debate by, in essence, failing to trust the American people.

In the end, after all the fear of unfiltered, unmediated questions delivered directly from the electorate to the candidates, it turned out that the fear was misplaced. It was CNN and the candidates themselves who let us down.

The questions from 'ordinary citizens' were great, the answers from the ordinary candidates not so great -- largely because they were not nearly as direct, thoughtful, honest or embracing. Instead, the bizarre nexus of Big Politics and Big Media once again displayed a simultaneous fascination with and fear of the Internet, the 'New Media' it has brought crashing down on their carefully wrought old media plans -- and especially the audience formerly known as the electorate.

The idea behind the debate format -- i.e. including for the first time 'citizen media' questions, often delivered in the highly personal and pointed direct-to-web-camera YouTube video style that has become so familiar -- was an inspired one.

Unfortunately, and all too typically, however, CNN's old media fear of losing control trumped its fascination with the new. In only going halfway, the cable news network delivered an inevitable result -- a debate that was only half great. Instead of leaving the decision of which questions would be asked to the same citizens who had already sent in thousands of mostly intelligent, serious and to-the-point videos, CNN honchos decided they needed to 'filter' the process and decide themselves which questions would get asked, so as to ensure the seriousness and high purpose of the evening would not be dragged through the mud of the mob.

To defend this dubious decision, they pointed to a crazy question about Arnold Schwarzenegger being a cyborg as the 'most popular' questioned submitted to YouTube. It turns out that was just an 'early return,' however, and in the end the most popular question -- which went unchosen by the CNN priesthood and thus unasked -- was a very serious one about the possible impeachment of President Bush.

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Filmmaker and journalist Rory O'Connor writes the Media Is A Plural blog.

The Myth of America's Rags-to-Riches Presidents

By Jonathan Zimmerman, Christian Science Monitor. Posted July 25, 2007.

Almost all grew up wealthy. That doesn't mean they couldn't serve the less fortunate.

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Rudy Giuliani received $11 million last year in speaking fees alone. John McCain is worth between $20 million and $32 million, most of it earned the old-fashioned way: He married into it. John Edwards, a former trial lawyer, has assets of about $62 million. But they're all paupers compared to Mitt Romney, founder of a private equity firm, whose personal fortune is somewhere between $190 million and $250 million.

So what else is new?

As the presidential primary contests heat up, we're being treated to yet another round of "exposés" about the personal wealth of America's presidential candidates. And no one has received more attention than Mr. Edwards, the antipoverty crusader with the $400 haircut and a new $4.2 million home. "What Would Jesus Do With John Edwards's Mansion?" Fox News anchor Brit Hume quipped, in a typical jibe.

These attacks reflect a curious American blend of romanticism and cynicism. On the romantic side, Americans like to imagine that their leaders once came from log cabins and other modest circumstances. In the cynical vein, meanwhile, they presume that a wealthy candidate could not -- or would not -- fight for the less fortunate.

But neither claim holds up to historical scrutiny. Despite the rags-to-riches mythology, American presidents have almost always come from the wealthiest sector of society. And despite their riches, some of these leaders have spoken valiantly and effectively for the poor.

Consider the first US president, George Washington, who grew up on a plantation with 49 slaves and more than 10,000 acres. After he died, biographers tried to paint him as a humble yeoman farmer. But during his presidency, Forbes magazine reports, Washington would have made its list of the 400 richest Americans!

Ditto for Andrew Jackson, regarded as America's first common-man president. Jackson grew up on an estate in South Carolina with slaves and a gristmill. He also attended a private academy, another mark of wealth at the time.

In the "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" campaign of 1840, William Henry Harrison swept into the White House by pretending that he had lived in an actual log cabin. He hadn't. Like his running mate, John Tyler, Harrison belonged to the elite crust of Chesapeake society known as the First Families of Virginia. Harrison's father inherited six plantations and served as Virginia's governor during the American Revolution.

Even Abraham Lincoln, who routinely touted his youthful poverty, was relatively well-to-do. At the time of Lincoln's birth, his father owned two farms of 600 acres along with several town lots, livestock, and horses. Five years later, Thomas Lincoln was listed among the richest 15 percent of property owners in his Kentucky community.

So there's nothing new in the personal wealth of today's presidential aspirants. Even the humblest of the major candidates, Barack Obama, scraped by on a $1 million income last year.

What is new, however, is the cynical idea that wealth will somehow infect a leader's political positions. If you come from serious money, the argument goes, you can't really represent people who don't.

Wrong again. Think of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, who both inherited vast sums. They felt that their riches gave them a special responsibility to aid others.

As a sophomore at Harvard, Roosevelt wrote a history thesis about his own family's "democratic spirit" in the face of enormous wealth. "They have felt … that being in a good position, there is no excuse for them if they did not do their duty by the community," he asserted.

As president, Roosevelt would face charges of class treason -- and, even, of communism -- from his fellow patricians, who worried that his New Deal policies would cut into their affluence. "They are unanimous in their hatred for me," Roosevelt declared in 1936, "and I welcome their hatred."

So it's fair to say that plenty of rich Americans didn't give a hoot about the poor. As Roosevelt's example shows, however, it hardly follows that a vast personal fortune prevents you from identifying with people less fortunate. Sometimes it works in reverse: Your wealth makes you more sensitive to the plight of the infirm, the homeless, and the unemployed.

So why do Americans continue to believe that their leaders come from the salt of the earth? At its root, the log-cabin legend expresses a basic myth about America itself: that anyone can make it here. Work hard, and you can become whatever you want. Even president.

That's obviously false. But it's equally false to think that the economic status of a leader will determine his or her attitudes toward wealth, poverty, and everything else. Come primary time, then, let's look less at our candidates' homes and haircuts and more at their platforms and policies. And let's beware confusing one with the other.

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Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author of "Innocents Abroad: American Teachers in the American Century."

Are Voter Registration Drives Being Put Out of Business?

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted July 25, 2007.

After the wave of successes in 2004 voter registration drives by groups like ACORN, a half-dozen states passed severe laws that scared off voting activists -- and now the Senate is weighing in.

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In 2004, Floridians overwhelmingly voted to raise their state minimum wage after low-income advocates collected ballot petition signatures, registered thousands of new voters and turned out the vote. The following spring, Florida's Republican-majority Legislature reacted. It passed a law that so severely regulated voter registration drives that, before the 2006 primary, Florida's League of Women Voters stopped registering voters for the first time in its history. The league feared mistakes on just 14 voter registration forms could result in penalties equal to its entire $70,000 budget.

Florida's actions were not unique. In Ohio, where the 2004 presidential election lingered as its Electoral College votes were challenged in Congress, Ohio's Republican-majority legislature passed a series of election reforms, including tough new rules and penalties for voter registration drives. In 2006, that law stopped the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, and community and church groups from registering voters in the state.

"In Florida, it absolutely shut down voter registration by all groups going up through the primary election of 2006," said Wendy Weiser, deputy director of the Brennan Center, a New York-based public-interest law firm that challenged the Florida and Ohio laws. "In Ohio, before there was an injunction in the case, voter registration was halted."

Both Florida's and Ohio's voter registration laws were challenged in court and were enjoined, or suspended, before the 2006 election, allowing voter registration to resume. Federal judges found they violated First Amendment rights and were hurting efforts to sign up new voters. But the trend of regulating voter registration drives did not end there. Between the 2004 election and today, six other states adopted similar laws -- Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, New Mexico, Missouri and Washington -- and like-minded bills have been proposed in New Jersey, Arizona and elsewhere, according to the Brennan Center.

Not all of these laws were passed by Republican partisans seeking political revenge. But the line between ensuring an accurate registration process and intentionally suppressing voters is very thin, according to academics, opponents and supporters of these laws. On Wednesday, July 23, the Senate Rules Committee will hold a hearing on sections of an election reform bill (The Ballot Integrity Act of 2007 or S. 1487) that would ban states from passing laws that would negatively impact voter registration drives.

"I think it is a real serious concern," said Dan Tokaji, assistant professor of law at Ohio State University and an election law expert. "There are constitutional rights, free speech rights and petition rights at issue. What has a lot of voting rights activists concerned is states with GOP-dominated legislatures are going to put a lot of voter registration groups out of business."

American democracy depends on private groups more than the government to register voters. As a result, registration efforts have always been sources of political friction.

"The attempts to restrict registration and attempts to smear groups that attempt to register voters comes from people who don't think those voters are likely to support them," said Kevin Whelan, ACORN communications director. "I think there is another response to people who don't like to see a lot of minority voters coming onto the rolls. They could campaign for those votes."

"It was done to address real needs," said William Todd, president of the Ohio chapter of the Republican National Lawyers Association, speaking of his state's voter registration reforms, which were since found to be unconstitutional. "Ohio was not alone in not having an updated election code. People hadn't looked at some of those laws in 50 years."

"There were two stories that stuck in my mind," he said, recalling lobbying for the laws. "Certainly there were a handful of fraudulent registrations here and there. The other thing was the state organization of election officials was complaining that there were certain groups that would save registration cards for months and then dump them on the boards of election at the last minute. Because they were brought in in such an untidy manner, the boards couldn't verify them and process them, and people lost the opportunity to vote."

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Steven Rosenfeld is a senior fellow at Alternet.org and co-author of What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election, with Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman (The New Press, 2006).

Is Monogamy Natural?

By Anneli Rufus, AlterNet. Posted July 25, 2007.

A lifetime of love versus a quick roll with a stranger. It's funny how we can have two seemingly opposite urges at the same time.

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A hot naked chick hit on Joe Quirk at Burning Man. That's what he calls her: a hot naked chick. He's married. But his wife wasn't there.

"I was in the middle of a desert," he remembers. "Nobody would ever know."

It's funny how we can have two seemingly opposite urges at the same time. A lifetime of love. A quick roll with a total stranger.

He said no.

Because he loves his wife. Because he wouldn't want to ruin his life by losing her. But choices such as the one he made that day on the sand aren't totally matters of morality. They're not about cartoon angels and devils sparring on our shoulders.

They're science talking.

Vaunted in the mainstream media, two new reports from the Pew Research Center report and the National Survey of Families and Households indicate that couples become bored and unhappy sooner than was previously thought: more like three years into their togetherness than seven.

Well, sure, says Quirk, whose book Sperm Are From Men, Eggs Are From Women (Running Press, 2006) details what he calls "the science of relationships." A three-year itch makes plain biological sense, he says.

"This is when your genes are saying, in effect, 'No child has been produced. Move on.'" In relationship matters, Quirk says,"we tend to consult our feelings. Well, where do our feelings come from? Emotions are instincts. Lust is an instinct. Marriage is an instinct."

Sometimes those two collude. Sometimes they collide. But among heterosexuals at least, both indiscriminate lust and what biologists call the pair-bond are hyperpowered programs streamlined through millions of years of evolution to produce one paramount result: offspring, preferably those who will live long enough to reproduce.

"Desires that dominate in our psyches are those that are best at getting genes into the next generation," Quirk says. "Our desires are designed to get us to the next life stage. The initial joy of pair-bonding evolved because it got us to the baby-raising phase." In which case, honeymoon bliss is yet another consummately efficient biological function that meets a need, rather like pissing.

"Lots of animals," Quirk says, "have the 'marriage' instinct: penguins, parrots, swans, gibbons, seahorses, humans. ... What do all these animals have in common? Long childhoods. Who has the longest childhood in the animal kingdom? Humans." For species whose slow-growing offspring statistically stand better chances of survival with two parents providing double-sustenance, double-vigilance, double-protection and double-support, monogamy makes scientific sense. But because it's so difficult "to live in the same nest for 15 years," as Quirk puts it, "love is an instinct coded into our genes."

Fool yourself all you want about free will.

"We inherited the desire to fall in love," Quirk insists, because that soul-baring, die-for-you devotion helped our ancestors "raise babies on the dangerous Pleistocene savanna."

He'd get an argument from the intellectual anti-love crowd. Certainly from Guggenheim Foundation fellow Laura Kipnis, who in Against Love: A Polemic (Pantheon, 2003) argues fiercely but with a sardonic smile that love -- not even monogamy or domesticity, but love -- is not an evolutionary legacy but "a new form of mass conscription," a lockstep drill like organized religion, performed under "marching orders" from nefarious overlord forces that don't want us to notice our "flagging ardor," which is the lot of the committed. Kipnis rages against "domestic gulags," against "the straitjacketed roles that such familiarity predicates ... the boredom and the rigidities which aren't about to be transcended in this or any other lifetime." Invoking Karl Marx, she compares love to a factory, calling them both "social institutions ... [that] come to subsume and dominate" their victims "like a hostile alien force."

How to escape that evil grip?

"Adultery ... is at least a reliable way of proving to ourselves that we're not in the ground quite yet," Kipnis writes, "especially when feeling a little dead inside."

You see it everywhere these days except the Hallmark Channel, this charge that monogamy is bad for us -- as a species, as a society, as red-blooded primates whose DNA is almost identical to that of bonobos. You remember bonobos. Five years ago everyone was talking about these pygmy chimpanzees, an endangered species numbering several thousand and native to a between-rivers swatch of the Democratic Republic of Congo, distinctive for engaging in so much nonmonogamous sex: face-to-face sex and same-gender sex and oral sex. "Sex-crazed Bonobos May Be More Like Humans Than Thought" hooted the headline of an article in Science Today. It was hard not to worry: Am I less sexy than a bonobo?

At least three different pop songs are titled "No Such Thing as Love," one by Dwight Yoakam, one by the Roches, one by the late Ian Dury. Their lyrics are different, but the message is the same. Frank Zappa sang: "There ain't no such thing as love, no angels singing. ... Why should I be stuck with you? It's just not what I want to do."

So wait -- are we building our dreams together, or chained to the machinery of someone else's brave new world? Are we throwbacks: Mr., Mrs. and Ms. Myth, our vows and pledges vestiges of a sexist, classist, fearful, funless antiquity?

Awash in a popular-culture chaos that on one hand thrusts images of happy-coupledom down our throats while simultaneously whispering that marriage might be a neocon plot, we question our commitments. Are they really that -- or cowardice? We question the meanings of stability, of loyalty. "Can we be protected without there being a protection racket?" asks celebrity psychologist Adam Phillips -- whom Kipnis admires -- in his book Monogamy (Pantheon, 1996). Phillips' barbed aphorisms read like fortune-cookie fortunes dispensed in restaurants next-door to divorce courts:

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Anneli Rufus is the author of several books, including Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto.